


the daisies are pretty

by vistalune



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Bokuaka - Freeform, Bokuto is a ghost, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Lots of flowers, M/M, Metaphors, Moving On, No Beta, Pining, and lots of mentions of spring, daisies specifically, kind of chaotic, kind of dramatic, side kuroken, sorry - Freeform, this was sadder than i intended, weird descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27272104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vistalune/pseuds/vistalune
Summary: “i don’t think i could...ever st-stop waiting for you to come home.” akaashi’s eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head at nothing in particular, his body wracked by another silent cry and the thunder engulfs them once more, before hiding his face behind the hand that was not holding the box.bokuto lets a breath escape him. he brings up a hand to the top of his knee and traces circles above the fabric of his jeans, choosing his words carefully and watching the box shudder in akaashi’s hand.“some things cannot be fixed, keiji. only carried. it’s up to you to figure out how to lighten the load.”...or, bokuto is dead, and akaashi is lost.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	the daisies are pretty

**Author's Note:**

> hello!
> 
> i listened to mr loverman for the first time a few days ago,,,, cue me falling into a rabbit hole of sad songs and staying up for the past three days writing this
> 
> i wrote this without the intent to publish it, i just felt like it was something i needed to do to get rid of that weird feeling the songs gave me. i just kinda wrote what i felt?? so i'm sorry if things don't make sense or are too weird or repetitive. 
> 
> i know there are probably a million aus like this, with the cliche you-died-in-a-car-accident-and-now-your-ghost-is-stuck-here, but i wanted to put my own take on it. the ideas are kind of chaotic and everywhere, but i hope i was able to relay it in a way that feels realistic c:
> 
> please look!: TW // death , blood 
> 
> there are mentions of death and blood in this au. nothing is specific, but i put the graphic violence and major character death tag just in case. please stay safe, and if you still need me to put visual warnings (like "!!!") before it, let me know and i'll go in and fix it. 
> 
> END OF TW
> 
> i promise i will get back to my kuroken au i just needed to write this first ;-; 
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> p.s. these are the songs that will occupy my headspace for the next couple of days, if you want to listen to them!!
> 
> \- yours by evann mcintosh  
> \- mr. loverman by ricky montgomery  
> \- i just really hope you exist by cassie mcmillian  
> \- die alone by finneas

_hello!_

_really quick - this story is completely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes only!_

_everything is entirely made up, and the canon characters that mine are named after have nothing to do with how they really are. i wrote this solely for your enjoyment (hopefully!) and for me to have something to pass the time with._

_please have fun with this, and thank you for everything!_

_\- bette_

~✿~

The days seemed to drag on longer, now that Bokuto was dead. 

_Dead._

That word quite literally felt like the end of the world. It meant something so absolute and finite, like the final cracks in the road before it trails off the ends of the earth, like the whistle of age as your final hairs grow white, or the orbit of the moon around a single planet over a millennia. It was often whispered around, carelessly, as if it had no weight at all, as if it should be a normal thing, rather than kept behind padlocks and tucked in the corner of the basement for you to forget about. 

The word stuck to the roof of his mouth and made normal things hard to say, tightened his veins and made it hard to keep breathing sometimes, the brown tip of wilted roses among a vibrant green brush. 

Almost like broken glass, when you knew you needed to get rid of it, to sweep it off of the ground and make sure there was nothing left. You didn’t want to hurt yourself touching it, being so close to something that made you bleed had you handled it wrong.

And Akaashi thinks he handled it the worst out of anyone, his hands cut up and messy with blood at the thought of trying to get rid of Bokuto’s broken glass, the more he tried to rebuild himself from the ground up with shards of memories and fractures of hopelessness embedding itself into his skin. 

It felt like the more he tried to clean up after him, the messier it got, the sloppier he felt.

It was hard. 

Akaashi thought it was so fucking unfair how everyone else moved on, thought of him in passing whenever he was mentioned or they saw something that reminded them of him. He thinks it’s unfair how the people around him still mustered up smiles, like death was just another neighbor that you greeted when getting the mail, like it’s something that everyone goes through and gets over. He thinks it unfair how the world kept revolving, how the sun still swept over their idle town, how the stars were just as bright above them once twilight brushed the sky with navies, just like it used to before it happened.

As if it _didn’t_ happen. 

He wouldn’t ever understand how the universe just got over it. 

There is a slight ripple in the air around him, cold and present. Akaashi blinks.

“What are you thinking about?” 

Akaashi is quiet, listens as the rain replaced the only sound he thought he’d ever love again outside of their – _his_ – window, angry and relentless as if the sky was still in mourning after all this time, as if the clouds were grieving almost as bad as he’d been. He’s sat on his bed, the comforter less than as it pools at his feet, his hands comfortably set in a tan hoodie with black drawstrings. 

Tan.

It was a weird color, but it was always Bokuto’s favorite – no, _is_ ...is? – claiming that it was under-appreciated and _someone_ needed to do it. Bokuto decided once that he would be that someone. 

Akaashi swallows the golf balls stacking themselves in his throat, not looking up at the voice while despair settles itself across his chest, heavy. Suffocating.

“You.” 

He swallows, biting the inside of his bottom lip as he stared at the comforter, trying his best to ignore the empty feeling in his chest, and how his heart felt wrung out at the mention of what had been on his mind since he’d woken up today. He tries his best not to cry again, or to make it seem like he was sad anymore, because he knew it would make Bokuto upset. He would tell him to stop feeling sad, as if his words would magically work, like a miracle cure, and then he would suggest for him to go out with Kuroo, just to get out of the house.

The house always felt like a jail cell now, especially when he let his thoughts run rampant on nights like this, and he couldn’t find it in himself to try to escape it. He’d found a niche within the familiarity of it and he couldn’t get over how good it felt being here, despite the pain found in the places that were supposed to be happy. 

There were memories that still hung from the ceiling, emotions and feelings that sat on the kitchen counter and leaned against couch cushions for him to come back to. He couldn’t leave that behind.

And he knows he should, but he couldn’t, at least not now.

“Keiji~.”

Akaashi clenches his teeth together a little harder at his voice, so vibrant and so _there_ that it almost felt like they should be doing their ritual of watching movies together in bed until the weather cut the power out for good, and then they’d sit against the island in their kitchen, hiding out from the world and entertaining themselves until the lights flickered back on, like they used to. He almost felt like he should be running around the house with him trailing behind, their giggles dancing beside them while love laced between their fingers, hearts glowing against the pitch dark like they used to while the storm raged outside. 

He feels like they should be going back to how they _used to,_ when he hears his voice tonight. 

It had always been so warm, and inviting, and loud. Like the summers before college, or how the beach brings in a frothy tide before sunset, that teenage dream feeling they’d get in their chest when they biked down an empty road, the sky erupting in ochre as violets streamed from the clouds that swiped across the horizon. As if the stars had settled themselves in his throat, Akaashi listened to the phantoms of the lifts that would accompany a chuckle, or his name being called across the house to check something out with him. It was something he’d never tire of.

Akaashi thinks of sandcastles when he says his name again.

The velvet box in his underwear drawer trembles.

“Sorry. I just like hearing you talk.” 

Bokuto simpers, his eyebrow lifting as his golden eyes glitter, a stark contrast to how dark it was inside. 

Akaashi never kept the lights on anymore. 

“Really? I like hearing me talk, too.” 

Yet, Akaashi’s lips somehow manage a smile at that, always remembering how loud Bokuto was when he got most excited. Even now, their voices mingled and jived, so different from each other as Akaashi barely raised his own against the noise of the rain against his window, and Bokuto’s nearly overpowered. 

Still, perfect.

“I just wish you’d talk more, Keiji.” 

Akaashi’s throat tightens at that, and in the silence that raises from it, he can’t help but wonder if maybe that would have saved him. 

Something so dumb, like _talking more,_ could have been the miracle that stopped the rain from slicking the street that day, maybe slowed down the car quicker, may have kept the stoplight red for a little while longer.

Just a little. 

“...I’m sorry.” Is all he could manage, and he bites down on his bottom lip as it quivers once to stop it. 

He hated crying, to begin with, even more, when Bokuto would ask him to stop because he said it made him sad. And sometimes, Akaashi would get frustrated, as if the accident didn’t ruin him, wanting more than anything to tell Bokuto how sad he’s made _him_. He always stopped himself.

He knew Bokuto would feel bad about it, anyway.

“Talk to me, then. What are you thinking about, seriously?” Bokuto tilts his head, his hair messy and in his face from the day of the accident, his tan hoodie pooling over his hands as he gripped the sheets of the mattress he’d been sat on, excited to hear him speak some more, even if it wasn’t something he wanted to hear.

He was always so excited about him. 

And Akaashi was glad he hadn’t gotten rid of that hoodie, even though it reeked of anguish and was always stained with heartbreak no matter how many times he washed it. No matter how many times he’s tried to wash _Bokuto_ out of it. 

He doesn’t think he’d ever get those stains out, either. 

“I said I was thinking about you, Koutarou,” Akaashi says, his name tasting like asphalt and strawberries as he says it out loud, and there’s acid on his tongue as the golf balls were replaced with lemon rinds, burning as he tried to keep himself calm. “Just...just thinking.”

“Well, stop.” Bokuto’s voice changes and it makes Akaashi stop for a moment as thunder rumbles above them, before his head trails to the last time it rained like this and he feels himself running on a reel back to the start. “Think about something else.”

“I can’t,” Akaashi says, running a hand over his forehead as if to wipe the memories away, the hoodie brushing over his nose and his sharp eyes prickle once again, trying _so fucking hard_ not to cry in the middle of his stupid bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Why don’t you call Kuroo? I’m sure he’d love to talk to you. Who wouldn’t?” He asks, but he nearly shouts the last part and it sounds like the first time they met on the courts of their high school gym, seeing him for the first time and asking to practice with him.

 _“My sets won’t help you,”_ he remembers telling him, trying to brush him off to go home for the day. “ _They’re no good right now.”_

_“Please? You’re a good setter. I really wanna practice with you. Who wouldn’t?”_

And it was evident from then that Bokuto would be persistent in every single thing he did, everything he pursued. 

Akaashi didn’t realize it then, but he was lucky enough to be one of them.

“He might be with Kenma.” Akaashi is at ease for a moment as Bokuto stretches his arms above his head, tan sleeves twirling down his wrists as he squeezes his eyes shut. A small half-smile tries his mouth as he remembers how much he liked it when he did that.

It was mundane, and Bokuto never thought twice about it, but there was something about it that made the butterflies in his chest flutter. He would do it all the time, and even now, when he was someplace else, not really _here,_ he still did it, just like he used to. Akaashi loved when he did it.

It was one of those weird couple things that they have.

Had.

“Even better. Two friends for the price of one.” Bokuto smiles, trying to ignore the hollowness that replaced the color in Akaashi’s eyes. “Call him.”

Akaashi felt the daunting task of talking to them hang heavy on his shoulders, of trying to make it seem like he was doing okay when the rain outside felt like it would swallow him whole. He would be stuck trying to convince them that he was alright when he was far from it. He would feel even more alone, when he saw them together, in their radiance and cynosure, so bright and inviting, _smiling,_ but he would feel shut out knowing he’d never have that again. 

They were always a tight-knit group of friends, the four of them. When Bokuto died, it kind of unwound strings and frayed ends, unspoken frustrations and tensions that Akaashi never dared to put into light causing friction between them, but they were okay. They were still good. 

Just different. 

“I don’t think I want to.” Akaashi shakes his head, desolate as Bokuto makes a face.

“So, what are you gonna do all day, Keiji?” 

Akaashi shrugs and shoves his hands in his hoodie pocket again, holding himself and trying to keep a piece of him together. He was struggling to keep all of him together, anyway, but he always tried. 

He knew Bokuto would want him to.

Akaashi brings his lips in again, as if to stop himself from saying what he was thinking, his eyebrows quirking with the urge to say it, to tell him that he was planning on staying in bed until he got too tired to keep crying and fell back asleep until tomorrow. It’s been working since then, six months he’s spent in this endless routine. 

He knew it wouldn’t help his case, though. So he just forgets about it. 

“Hey, say it. I know you’re thinking about saying something. Your eyebrows did that weird thing again.”

Akaashi looks up at him for the first time tonight, his eyes housing the sunsets he used to love to go watch with him after school, and Akaashi feels his ribcage sink in the hole in his chest as it grows bigger, feeling worn out and alright when he looks at him. Like his fuse was running out, and he was running on empty, but he was flickering and still alive. 

Bokuto made him feel alive. 

“Whoa. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Keiji.” Bokuto smiles, his lips pretty and pink, just like they used to be.

Akaashi deflates, a sigh escaping his nose at him and his green eyes darken as the storm threatens to spill from them, the airy atmosphere feeling unpleasant and out of place. 

“Not funny.” 

Akaashi musters the strength to just grab his phone from his nightstand beside him, his bones feeling too heavy for him and his skin too tight, as if it wasn’t made for him to live in. He hadn’t really felt like he was living since the accident, and he doesn’t know how screwed up the world had to be to grant him Bokuto back like this, a figment, another existence, antipodal and he wasn’t really there all the time. 

Akaashi sometimes thought he was a hallucination, a desire manifesting itself back into his boyfriend in a form that he wanted to remember, that maybe his head did him in after all this time with no kind of closure and Bokuto’s ghost wasn’t real. 

But then he would walk past him, feel the goosebumps over his arms as if they were really brushing against each other, and he stops. 

Bokuto was always cold.

Akaashi wonders if anyone else dealt with this, like how he was. 

“Can you come lay with me?” Akaashi asks, and Bokuto’s golden eyes flicker, before he stands up from the bed, taking it as his cue to leave.

Akaashi was always the stubborn one in their relationship, less than willing to show any affection in front of people, and he would often pull Bokuto aside to kiss him or hold his hand when people weren’t looking. 

Bokuto never minded, always opting to be close to Akaashi in some way, in any kind of way. So it didn’t feel so good to deny him something that should have come naturally from him.

Still, Akaashi is hopeful for a moment, but Bokuto barely shakes his head and Akaashi would have missed it had he blinked, a pale, gentle blue light lingering over his white hair as it lays over his forehead.

“I’m sorry, baby.” Bokuto still has a smile on his face and Akaashi could tell he had lost him again, his voice leery and he can’t look at him. “You know I can’t...just...call Kuroo, okay? I’ll be in the kitchen.” 

Akaashi doesn’t respond, his throat stinging and he tries to swallow but it only spreads the ache into his chest, eyes focusing on his phone as if he was trying to figure out how to get to the call log as Bokuto leaves him alone again. He finally breaks, covering his mouth and his nose with the fabric that had bunched up over his hands and squeezing his eyes shut, curling in on himself and his hands tremble so much that the phone falls face down onto the mattress, feeling the flood break through the barriers he had tried so hard to build up for the past six months, submerging his heart and crushing his lungs and the wave comes so strongly this time, he nearly goes numb.

Some days, it wasn’t too bad. 

Today was horrible.

Maybe it was because of the rain. 

And by the time he let the air back into his lungs, by the time his eyes were stained ruby and splotches of tears darkened the tan color of the hoodie, Bokuto was not in the kitchen when he checked, or anywhere else in the house for that matter.

He never did call Kuroo and Kenma. 

~✿~

The shower used to be one of Akaashi’s favorite places. 

It was a place where he could let his thoughts spill out as his feet, just to collect them again while the clocks were stopped, while the steam hugged him and the silence was filled with the spray of the water. He would be surrounded by himself, completely cut off from everyone else in a way that they still kept him company, in a way that he was alone but not lonely. 

Until Bokuto would mess it up.

Akaashi never minded when he did, anyway.

For most people, that would be weird, to find comfort in the shower, when things like hammocks between trees or chocolate-covered strawberries existed. They were more normal. But Akaashi always looked forward to the shower. 

It used to be peaceful there. 

The spray felt like needles today, piercing his back and shoulders and tickling his nose as he let his face run under it. Sometimes, it felt like he needed to feel this pain, to distract himself from the ache that just would not go away, no matter how many things he tried. He felt like he deserved it, for feeling like he had the right to be so torn up over him, when people like Bokuto’s parents were suffering the most.

Akaashi sighs, his eyes raw and puffy and the back of his nose tickled. He woke up today in a bad mood, went to sleep last night in one even worse. Bokuto told him he wouldn’t stay, just to help him, because it was best.

He said it was best if he didn’t stay last night. 

Akaashi sometimes wondered where he would go when he left. Maybe he traveled across different dimensions, different planes, like how the movies sometimes made it seem like. He liked to think that he was in their home, doing the same things he used to, maybe baking cookies or dancing to no music with his own version of Akaashi still by his side. 

Or maybe he moved on. Maybe he was alone. 

He didn’t really know how it worked over there.

He did know, however, that he missed him, even more, today than he did yesterday and it sucked to think about him. 

Grief was a strange thing. 

It was not just crying at the mention of the one you lost. It was more than feeling sad whenever their favorite song came on the radio on the way to work, or trying to find the willpower to take yourself to their grave and set flowers beside it with each year the date rolls over.

It was more than that. Worse than that. 

It was quiet, gave you no kind of warning for when it would show up. It was persistent and exhausting, tireless as it completely shadowed every other emotion you were perilously trying to feel. Like stepping in quicksand, or the first calls of rain before a thunderstorm. It would come in waves, and pull at your feet until you were choking on it, until it filled lungs and soaked in clothes. 

Akaashi doesn’t think he’d ever really comprehend what it truly was. 

Why does everybody get to be so happy when he was sleeping alone?

He swipes at his eyes again, steam pressing into his skin as he turns around and lets the water hit his back, uncomfortable and annoying. 

He needed to get the hell out of here. 

The hooks that held the curtain blocking out the rest of the world scream and shudder suddenly, and by the time he opens his eyes and wipes at them again to get rid of the water around them, he sees Bokuto, getting his tan hoodie all wet, the blue glow more prominent when the dull lights of the bathroom were on.

Akaashi tried to ignore it. It made it very clear that his Bokuto was not the same one before the accident, that he could disappear for good any second, that he truly was _dead,_ just stuck here. He thinks that it shouldn’t be something he complained about, when Bokuto didn’t have to show up at all. 

And even now, when he knew he should have, he still couldn’t bring himself to get upset at the disruption.

“You couldn’t have knocked? Or waited until I got out?” Akaashi asks, eyebrows coming together and his eyes hurt once more as he dragged his fingers over them to get rid of the tears, like sandpaper to his sensitive skin.

It was in vain, considering his entire face was wet, but he still made the effort.

“You’ve been in here for over an hour. I came to see how you were feeling.” Bokuto says, and suddenly Akaashi feels too cold.

The water was almost scalding, but it was not enough.

“Like shit.” Bokuto pouts and Akaashi shivers as the water snakes down his back, looking at the shower floor. “You’re getting all wet.”

He turns around, letting his head hang and the water cascade over his face again, trying to let it wash out the memories of this shower and this bathroom and the house and the world, trying to convince himself to get over him a little more today than he had yesterday. It was more difficult trying to stay away from him, trying to kick him out when he’s made a home in his heart so effortlessly.

He wanted him to go, so he could suffer for a little while, rather than keep the pace up.

But the hardest thing was letting go. He doesn’t think he could do it.

There are arms around his waist and a chin on his shoulder, barely-there like the breath of butterfly wings as they depart from flowers. He was too afraid to look at his arms, still pressed against his side as if nothing was wedged in between them, like Bokuto’s arms should have been, used to be.

He was too scared.

He didn’t say anything, and Akaashi never used to like when Bokuto fell quiet because it always meant something was bothering him and he didn’t know how to fix it.

Even now, when he wasn’t really here, he was upset about something, taking over everything without saying much.

“When...do you think you’ll be ready?” 

Akaashi shuts his eyes again, trying his best not to touch him, fearful that he would break again as he tried to search for a love that had been lost among the shattered glass from the windshield, or maybe beneath the crushed seats or between the flat tires. He was fearful that he would start his grief over, start his mourning over, from the beginning.

He didn’t want to go through that again.

“Probably never.”

And Akaashi knew he shouldn’t be so negative about it, that everyone moves on eventually. It was natural to feel hopeless when it came to this.

It was just a weird feeling. He couldn’t really put it into words.

“Seriously.”

“How the hell do you expect me to do it?” Akaashi asks, getting frustrated at Bokuto’s soft tone, as if this was just something people do every day, something people have to go through temporarily no matter how uncomfortable they got, like school or work.

This was not a fucking normal thing that he should be going through.

“Go out,” Bokuto says, letting go of Akaashi and turning around to look at the many bottles of shower stuff that he always thought were too much. Like the sugar scrub behind the shampoo. Bokuto makes a face, before letting his attention go somewhere else. “You don’t have to date someone to move on, Keiji. Just do it. Do _something.”_

“I hate how you’re acting like it’s easy.” Akaashi feels annoyance bubble in his veins as another wave brushes at his feet, the spray of the shower not helping _at all._ “Please don’t do that, Koutarou.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just…” Bokuto looks at the curtain, feeling his heart open up. “I want you to be happy.”

Akaashi doesn’t think he’d ever be, not again, not like how he was.

“Plus, I hate being stuck here.”

Akaashi feels his heart breaking again, and he thinks it’s dumb because they were just having a normal conversation, something they did every day when Bokuto was alive. Maybe it was because he was talking about something that Akaashi didn’t want to hear, and it terrified him to know that things would seem more real if they were talked about. He always kept his emotions to himself, so this was difficult.

Bokuto never agreed with that one, either.

“You have to move on—”

“Stop _fucking_ saying that!” Akaashi turns over his shoulder and there’s a sudden rage that sits heavy in his gut as he looks into the shower drain, tensing his fists as his blood sparked under his skin at what he meant. 

Akaashi wanted so bad to push him to the ground, to tell him that he was wrong and being stupid. He wanted so badly for his head to match up with his heart, to get angry at him for saying things like that. He tries, weakly, feeling himself break down as he looks into Bokuto’s eyes, pretty and gold and safe, even as Akaashi is yelling at him.

But he loved him, and now it felt like he did _too much,_ because he doesn’t think he would ever move on from him. The more he said it, the more he asked him to, felt selfish, because he knew he needed to in order for Bokuto to go home. 

Maybe a part of him was keeping him here, to hurt him, almost as bad as he was suffering.

It wasn’t a good mindset. Guilt felt like it was right up there with grief.

“Just please…” Akaashi can’t look at him anymore, damaged and cold, and he really didn’t want to cry in front of him but it was so exhausting trying to keep up. “Stop saying that, _please.”_

Bokuto knows Akaashi was very close to his limit, filling to the brim and threatening to spill over had he pushed him more. So he doesn’t say anything, and instead, pulls the curtain back again, leaving Akaashi to himself while his thoughts muddle and sink down the drain, while his cries get lost within the steam of the shower.

And that night, when Bokuto was gone, he tried his best to imagine he was sleeping beside him, rather than his pillow.

~✿~

Akaashi remembers the spring.

He would go to the field off of Hanagasaku with Bokuto in the mornings sometimes, right as April came, trying to keep up with him, hand in hand, as he ran towards the daisy patch in the far right corner to see if they were in bloom yet. Every day, he would insist on going to check on them, as dandelions sang beneath their feet and butterflies skipped around them all the same, running into nowhere with the threat of losing their way back home nipping at their heels.

Eventually, Bokuto found one daisy that had finally bloomed, a hidden gem among the white buds that speckled the grass like stars. 

His eyes were brazen that day as he picked it from the ground, holding it up to Akaashi with a smile so bright he would have thought it put the sun to shame.

He remembers, during the spring, how Bokuto set the daisy on the top of his ear, and when it stayed, he called Akaashi beautiful for the first time since they met.

They were not together, yet, but it felt like they were. 

And that same spring, Akaashi kissed him while the sky was bathed in violets, melting into him and floating above the clouds, black hair speckled with the loveliest daisies he’d ever seen.

Akaashi had found Bokuto in many things after that. He told him once, and only once, that he reminded him of the daisies that they would go check on before they moved a little farther away from that part of town to go to university together, when the winter was getting to be too cold and the sun was missed in the afternoons.

Bokuto smiled like summer, and kissed him again.

He was new beginnings and a sense of home as the sun rose and the moon fell each day, the whisper of a soft breeze that shook those same daisies and housed dandelions that trembled with the hope from the tip of tongues.

He was a lot like the spring, a lot like the things Akaashi had wished for.

Hope was something that he clung onto as he tried to put himself back together, a puzzle with half of it missing, maybe the wrong pieces scattered in front of him to work with. But he was hopeful sometimes.

And Akaashi thinks that word felt like pain, too.

~✿~

“I’ve come to check on you.”

Akaashi does not feel like he’s in his body, not really alive today, when he opens the door for Kuroo this evening. 

He stood there, and Akaashi tried hard not to notice how he was treating him like he was fragile, like he needed to walk on eggshells for him, hoping he didn’t trigger anything in him and get what he came here for. He knew Bokuto wouldn’t have wanted him to stay cooped up in the house, either. 

Akaashi knew he didn’t mean to, in fact, he would have been the same way had the roles been switched. 

You couldn’t help but feel sorry for someone who was suffering this badly in front of you. 

“I am not doing so well.” Akaashi tells him, truthfully, feeling weak and tired and it took a lot in him to shift his body on their bed after waking up this morning, cold tears caught on his bottom lashes like honey when he did. 

“Do you want to go out? Maybe we could grab lunch or something. When was the last time you ate, Akaashi?” Kuroo runs a hand through his black bed hair, somehow messing it up even more.

Akaashi blinks, the answer in the back of his head but too far away to really remember. The words were caught in his throat and he was too tired to try again.

Kuroo nods, taking the silent reply as enough of an answer. “Come on, then. It will just be me and you.”

And Akaashi wants to tell him no, that they should reschedule for another time, that today wasn’t a good day but he’d be up for it again soon. He wants to go back to bed, to sleep under covers that still smelled like Bokuto as the day wastes, like he usually did.

“Go, Keiji. Good food would do you well!” 

Bokuto calls from the kitchen, scattering his thoughts like fallen vases and his voice was loud but seemed just as exhausted as Akaashi felt. 

He ignored him.

He let his eyes fall to the ground beside his sock-covered feet, seeing the same white sneakers strewn near his bike by the door from the last time he went out. He slips his foot into one before he has a chance to let out his reluctance, his bones unwieldy in his body.

He gets the other one on, Kuroo waiting patiently by the door for him. 

Akaashi really appreciated him, despite wanting him to leave.

“Have a good time, Keiji!” Bokuto called from the kitchen, kicking his legs back and forth against the island he’d been sat on, his lips turned upwards into a smile as tan sleeves pooled over his hands, childlike. “I love—”

Bokuto stops himself and Akaashi goes pale, at the thought of hearing him say it again after six months, of hearing him _almost_ say it again. 

Bokuto was making tremendous efforts to help Akaashi move on, trying not to touch him or talk about the past or make it that much more clear that he was still the love of his life, despite not having a life anymore. 

He slips up sometimes, but he knew this one wasn’t going to be as easy for Akaashi to let go as the other times.

And he knew it when Akaashi’s eyebrows came together as he stared at the direction of the kitchen, ducking his head away from Kuroo as he turned to shut the door behind him quickly, shutting Bokuto in and wanting so desperately to get as far away from this house as possible.

Bokuto let himself fall back onto the island, the kitchen his favorite place to be while Akaashi was gone or sleeping or doing something somewhere else, letting a breath out. He’s been fond of the kitchen lately, especially the floor, because it’s been raining nearly every day since spring began. They would always sit against the island and talk, or play card games or make up fairy tales to each other when they were feeling ridiculous and had nothing else they wanted to do. Some of Bokuto’s favorite memories resided in the kitchen, so that’s where he liked to stay if he couldn’t be in the bedroom.

And despite him wanting to leave, to sever the ties that kept him here, he didn’t mind staying in the kitchen so much.

~✿~

The water was black.

It pooled at his feet, as the wet sand grabbed at his skin, the moon pale as an ivory sheen draped itself over his shoulders. The beach was always a nice place, even better at night, when there was no one else here.

Coming here at night was allowed, but Akaashi and Bokuto always felt like they were breaking the rules as the shoreline was deserted and the boardwalk creaked beneath the footprints of nobody.

“How long has it been?” 

Bokuto’s hair was slicked back this time, skin dazzling with drops of water from the sea in front of them, as if he was made of diamonds himself, the currents churning delicately and crawling against the horizon. Sand stuck itself to Akaashi’s arms and the back of his legs as he sat beside him, looking into the offing of the sea as a storm brewed to their right.

It was far away, but too close for Akaashi to really be comfortable.

A delicate flash of lightning stuns him for a moment, small in his vision.

“Six months. A little over six months.” Akaashi tells him, but he wasn’t sad tonight.

It was surreal, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel sad. Bokuto was right beside him, like usual, and he was wet and warm from the water. 

“Do you miss me?”

Akaashi shuts his eyes, an empty feeling rung around his ribcage and settling heavily in his stomach. He sits down where he was beside Bokuto, the soapy tide encouraging them to stay as it frothed up to their swim trunks, eager, the water pleasant and familiar.

This whole scene felt familiar. The storm was just strange.

“Very much,” Akaashi says, looking into the offing with Bokuto, rather than at his face. “Yes.”

He wants himself to take him in, not sure when he would see him and feel _this_ legitimate with him again. He urged himself to touch him, to lean on his shoulder like he usually would, to kiss him, to do something.

But he just sat there, almost unwilling. There was a barrier up, and they couldn’t see it, but it was strong and it was there and Akaashi knew he shouldn’t try to break it down. 

Not tonight.

Not yet.

Bokuto rests his chin on his knees. 

“I miss you, too.”

“Someday, I’m gonna be with you,” Akaashi says freely, and to anyone else, it would sound morbid coming out of his mouth, but it was true. He leans back on his hands and lets the moon cool over his face. “And I’ll finally get to kiss you.” 

Bokuto smiles, embarrassed, and looks at the water over his feet, roses blooming underneath his cheeks at the thought.

He didn’t think he’d ever have to think about that, not once, when they were perfectly happy together, when they felt the most invincible with each other. It was a simple thing, and different compared to all the other things he missed without Bokuto around. There were many, _many_ things, but to kiss him again was one that he wanted the most.

Just once.

“What’s it like?” Bokuto asks, his voice gentle like the tide beneath them as another flash of lightning decorates the sky, far from them. 

Akaashi swallows, leaning back on his hands, feeling how the sand is new and surrounding his fingers as if he was the same person as he was when he used to come here. It felt forgiving.

“It feels worse than being dead, I think.” He says, and tears threaten to prickle his eyes as the stars above him encourage him to keep going, his heart setting heavy and grey blood flows in his veins. “Or like you’re constantly about to die, maybe. Sometimes I wish it could have been me...Or I went with you. Hm…” 

Bokuto tilts his head, his eyes trained on the water as if he was speaking directly to him. 

“It’s like...black. Blue-black.” Akaashi purses his lips, trying to make it make sense. “Everything is blue-black. And you don’t remember the days as much anymore. But you have to eat and go to the bathroom and shower and stuff but...everything is blue-black.”

“...Blue-black?” Bokuto asks, and Akaashi could tell he thought it was silly with the way his tone had brushed up with a chuckle at the end of it.

Akaashi grins in return, eyes still shut and there’s an image of Bokuto smiling at what he said, just like he used to whenever Akaashi said something particularly out there. 

It was rare, but Bokuto liked it when he did.

“Yeah. Blue-black. Like this water.” 

“The water?” Bokuto asks, and he looks down at their feet again. 

The tide was clear to him, as the golden sand danced beneath another swipe of the tide near him. The sunset was pretty here, too. 

It was definitely not blue-black where Bokuto was. 

“It’s not dark?”

“It’s not. It’s pretty. You could see the seashells on the shore through the water.” Bokuto tells him, and Akaashi opens his eyes again to see the moon blinking back at him, the seashells quaking in the dark parts of the bottom of the ocean while the stars reflect off of the inky surface of the water. 

The water was black. But he assumes that maybe Bokuto was in a better place than he was, a better plane. He didn’t realize that it probably felt so dark over here because he might have been in his head too much. 

“O-oh, yeah. You’re right. It just looks...looked dark for a moment.” Akaashi says, and Bokuto smiles beside him but he was too afraid to look at him in fear that he would ruin it for him. At least here, he could make Bokuto a little happier by pretending. “The shells are nice.”

Bokuto nods and lightly bites the inside of his bottom lip, goldenrods splitting the sky and filtering through his honeyed skin. 

Akaashi stares at the water, hoping that he could somehow make it look like the water Bokuto was staring at, hoping he could imagine the same seashells and sun glitters he had been enthralled in beside him. He finally lets himself fall back into the sand, plush and almost as soft as his bed back at home, shutting his eyes and trying to get himself to where Bokuto was, back into a different existence where he was seeing clear water, too.

The storms were tiring.

There is a soft weight on his chest and wet hair tickles his chin, slicked back and white as it took on the color of the moonlight above him. He loses his breath as a rush of memories come back to him, his heart wrenching in his chest, like when you wring out wet towels. 

There was nothing left to wring out, either. But it felt just as bad.

Akaashi sighs shakily, and he lets himself bring an arm up over Bokuto’s shoulders, holding him close for as long as he could while he was still here. 

“I don’t want to have to re-learn how to be happy,” Akaashi admits, his voice barely audible as the waves crash over the shore, and there are clear tears smudged against his temples, but he wasn’t sobbing like he expected himself to.

Bokuto hears him, but he doesn’t respond to him, not really knowing what to say. He was getting closer to acceptance, closer to the blurred lines between remembering and forgetting.

It pained him a little, too. 

All he wanted was for Akaashi to be happy. 

“I love you a lot, you know. I didn’t regret anything with you.” 

And it was here that Akaashi felt his heart break once more.

He brought up a sandy arm over his eyes to block everything out, his grip on Bokuto tightening and he takes a deep breath that feels too heavy for his chest and scatters the fragments of his heart that were too ruined to mend. He felt like that might have been what he needed to hear. 

His heart was trying to beat like how it used to, but it was too slow.

Bokuto slings an arm around Akaashi’s midsection, shutting his eyes and listening to his sniffles against the tide, his grip tight on his shoulder and his chest constricting around his heart. 

“I love you, still.” He tells him, shutting his eyes as the sunset sits against his cheeks, hoping to one day, get back to how they used to. One day. “I love you, still.”

When Akaashi woke up, he was alone, but the ghost of the weight of Bokuto still lingered on his chest and his temples were wet. 

He often hated going to bed, because he knew he’d wake up alone, or struggle to sleep, lying his head on a cold pillow that had no heartbeat.

~✿~

It hadn’t rained so bad lately, softening up into cloudy days while the sun struggled to smile behind them.

The streets are silver mirrors against the heat of the sun as petrichor perfumed the grass and snaked over trees. Akaashi took comfort in that, knowing that she was trying her best to be happy, too. Maybe soon, she would shine and warm his brittle bones, just like she used to when he needed her most. 

He had been out with Kuroo for the past few days, as well, on Bokuto’s behalf and Kuroo’s urging. 

It wasn’t so bad. 

He sometimes didn’t feel like he was really with Kuroo, that he was just going through the motions until he got home. But when he did, he thought it was better to spend time with his friend, rather than by himself and the enemies he’s made with his thoughts. They were unforgiving, sometimes. 

It felt a little better to be in the company of someone who was.

“Keiji~.”

His voice wavers, as if he was cautious. Akaashi slowly looks up at him, his green eyes still puffy but he hadn’t cried as much today as he did yesterday. 

His heart was beating. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly.

“Hi,” Akaashi tells him, smiling as best as he could but it didn’t feel so forced. 

It cracked his skin open and made him bleed, but it didn’t feel so forced.

“How are you feeling?” Bokuto asks, sitting on the foot of his bed, his hoodie tan and his hair still against his forehead, black drawstrings lying against his chest. He leans back against the mattress and stares at the ceiling fan twirl, ready to listen to him, still ready to give his attention to Akaashi after all this time.

“Like shit,” Akaashi replies, somewhat surprised in himself that his words held a little less weight than he was used to.

They didn’t stick to the roof of his mouth or get caught in his throat this time, but he still hated the way they tasted. He takes a shallow breath through his nose and hunches his shoulders bit, trying to think of what to do today before Bokuto asks–

“What are you going to do today? The rain isn’t so bad today.” Bokuto says, eyes flicking to the window with the blinds shut. “What’s Kuroo up to?”

“I was gonna go out on my own,” Akaashi says, and though he had no intention of leaving the house today, he still says it in hopes that maybe it would push him to actually leave. 

He rubs his tired eyes and they send electricity into his skull.

“Really? Where to?” Bokuto’s eyes light up and Akaashi feels obligated to not disappoint him. 

He missed the golden sheen his eyes used to reflect when he was still around. They would often gleam about what seemed like anything, mostly when Akaashi suggested they go do something outside the house, a flame dancing above candles or the paintbrush stroke of dusk before twilight. 

And here he was, still gleaming, as Akaashi suggested something outside of the house. 

Except he wouldn’t come with him this time.

The black velvet hums over the box in his underwear drawer.

“Dunno, yet. I was just gonna bike somewhere.” Akaashi says, voice worn out like tire streaks to asphalt, but he gets up anyway, stretching and feeling somewhat physically ill at the thought of pushing himself to do something.

“Keiji...I’m proud of you.” His voice was sweet, the saccharine drip of popsicles in the July swelter, addictive in all its worth.

And because of that, he couldn’t let him down. Now he _had_ to stick to his word. 

Akaashi glances at Bokuto as he passes him to get to the door, having a million and one things to say, yet it felt like he had nothing. 

He wanted to tell him he missed him, but Bokuto knew that. 

He wanted to tell him about how his professors at school stopped looking at him like he deserved any sympathy, or about Kuroo’s new internship at the labs in their university. He wanted to tell him he looked pretty today, and yesterday, and that time when he dreamed about him, and in his memories. He wanted to tell him that he still hears his voice when he’s not in the house, that his laughs still soaked into the cracks of the wall and flickered among the lights in the kitchen and in the back of his head when he was trying to fall asleep.

But he doesn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. For once, Akaashi listened to his head this time.

He hadn’t touched his bike in what felt like years. It’s only been about seven months now, but it feels like eons, the handlebars foreign and the sound of the wheel spokes annoying.

Time skipped by so quickly when you were running out of it.

“Have a good time!” Bokuto calls from their bedroom, shutting his eyes as he rests against the foot of the bed, preparing himself to wait for Akaashi, however long it took him to get back.

And this was good, that it felt more like he was waiting on Akaashi rather than Akaashi waiting for him. So he couldn’t bring himself to feel upset. 

His strings were loosening up.

This was very good, for both of them. It just felt less than.

~✿~

Akaashi has been pedaling for _so long._

He decided to let the road steer him, not in the best mindset to focus on a specific place, and he suddenly got a burst of energy as the sun began to set behind him to go somewhere, _anywhere_ other than back to the house. His lungs were lined with flames as he tried to catch his breath, leaving him faster than it filled him, feeling the wind raking its fingers through his hair and singing into his ears, telling him to go faster, _faster_.

He did not know where he was going. But he was going.

The sky was pretty. Akaashi can’t remember the last time he’s seen it look so bright. 

He turns with the curve of the bridge he was on, pushing himself to go. To leave the last place he found himself, to race against time and escape. And he didn’t really know what he was running away from, but he knew it was hot on his trail and he was fearful it would consume him had it caught up. 

So he pedals faster, until heat packed itself between his ribs and a headache tapped at his temples, threatening. 

He didn’t mind it.

Akaashi found himself at his old high school, the windows to the building housing memories that he’d love to keep in a little case and store it under his bed to go back to when he really needed it. He found Bokuto here, he found Kuroo and Kenma here, he found himself here. 

He lets his bike fall to the ground when he stops it, eyes focused on the gym, the sun dripping golds off of the domed roof and slicking the windows with gentle glints from its rays. 

He doesn’t know if he should go in. Was it even unlocked?

Nobody was here, considering it was supposed to be spring break for them and he knew what it was like to just want to stay home without worrying about setting foot back in a high school. He sometimes wished he spent more time with Bokuto while they were friends, and while they were together.

Most definitely a little more before they got into the car seven months ago. 

Akaashi lets a breath leave him, letting his head fall back as the sun warms over him, listening to the quiet of the afternoon and trying to pick himself back up. His heart was beating. He was breathing.

He was okay.

He walks forward, slowly, passing the gym and making his way towards the grassy area in front of the teacher parking lot towards the back of the school. It was locked, but the area was still open, still like it used to be.

A tree loomed tall and sturdy in the corner that nobody ever went to, the grass slightly overgrown and the sun didn’t really pass through the shade of the leaves above that spot. It feels too hard to breathe, as he looks at it, remembers always having to brush the grass off of his pants when he had to go home, or picking the leaves that fell out of Bokuto’s hair when they decided they had enough sitting around. 

It had been one of their favorite places to be within this school.

Akaashi goes over to it, his feet dragging as the grass flattens beneath his feet, almost too loud to him. He stares at it, entranced, as if it had been occupied by another Bokuto and Akaashi already on a different, earlier plane, and he wouldn’t have belonged here.

And even when he does, sits in the exact same spot he used to while leaving room for Bokuto to his left, he still felt like he didn’t belong here. Akaashi found himself closing his eyes a lot lately, mostly when his head was too full, but when he did it this time, he felt like he was eighteen again, sitting here after practice. Still, he felt sore, as if he had been pushing himself back on the court.

He rests his head against the tree trunk he was leaning against, feeling the wind pick up and cool over his face. 

It’s only been two years since he was last here, but it somehow felt like just yesterday, he was watching the leaves fall into Bokuto’s hair, while telling him about his day or the volleyball match he’d watched last night. Excited, as always, completely oblivious to anything else except for whatever consumed his headspace for the time being. 

It felt like yesterday when he knew he fell in love with him, right under this tree.

Akaashi felt tired once night fell, the trunk rough and uncomfortable against the shape of his skull but he loved the feeling of something that used to annoy him so much back then, becoming his saving grace when he felt so close to falling apart underneath the stars, in the same place he would feel secure in.

This tree was always good to him, always welcomed him with splashes of green and speckled yellows.

Akaashi found Bokuto in the soft wind that brushed over his face once more, keeping him company and not minding the deep silence he had sat in. He gently ruffled the grass and shook the branches, wavering the shade from the moonlight over him. He made the dandelions smile among the long weeds at his feet.

He still took up so much of Akaashi’s space, even when he wasn’t here.

~✿~

“Where’d you go?” Bokuto asks once Akaashi steps into the kitchen, waiting for him, just like he usually does.

He’d actually gotten home quite some time ago, and Bokuto thinks he didn’t try to find him because he was doing things to make it easier on himself. He thought he didn’t seek him out, like usual, because he was trying to heal as best as he could while Bokuto still occupied a part of the house. 

He thinks he didn’t come to find him because he was making progress.

The rain was starting up again, Akaashi enjoying the few moments of brittle sunlight that washed over their neighborhood while it lasted. And for once, he was not looking forward to staying inside the house while the rain reminded him of slicked roads and police lights.

He was not looking forward to staying in bed while guilt sat at the foot of it and tugged at the blankets.

“To our high school,” Akaashi says, swallowing when he sees Bokuto sitting in their favorite spot to hide from the rain.

A golf ball sits in his throat.

“Why? If you don’t mind my asking.” 

Akaashi is quiet for a moment as he sits beside him, his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, the velvet shocking his fingertips.

“I just wanted to see...if it changed. It’s good to remember.” 

Bokuto is cold and Akaashi wonders if he were to swipe at him hard enough, if he’d disappear like how smoke does when you shoo it away. He felt like smoke.

He felt barely-there.

Akaashi scoots over a little, just to give him extra room in case he’d need it.

“It is good. The gym, especially.” Bokuto tries to tread lightly in fear that he’d step on the wrong button and cause traps to go off inside Akaashi that he’d have to spend more time fixing.

Akaashi nods, his green eyes never leaving the open door frame of the kitchen. He focuses on the black trim, how a color like that swallows everything whole, how a color like that has occupied the entirety of his being, how a color like that had been captured by the rain and showered ink all over the roof of their house.

He is hollow.

“I went to the tree.”

Bokuto raises his eyebrows, golden eyes still brazen despite there being no lights on inside, still. 

“Hm...do you think it was a good idea?”

Akaashi purses his lips, and he was very close to telling him that it wasn’t, that he tired himself out just by sitting there, that it cracked his heart open to remember something that had no chance of happening again, that it frustrated him that Bokuto was _fucking gone._

But he nods once, quiet, hoping that if he were to believe that it was a good idea, then it _was_ a good idea. He needed to believe in anything at this point.

“I think so. It reminded me of us, how we were back then.” Akaashi tells him, and Bokuto brings his arms up to hug around his knees and rests his chin on them as the rain streaks over their window, sprinkling like applause over their roof.

They were safe here. Akaashi was safe here.

Time passed, to where Akaashi felt worn again, his fingers tracing the slit of the velvet box where the magnets held it together. He knew he shouldn’t think so much about it, maybe have kept it in the drawer and forgotten about it until it was time to move out, to stumble upon it when there was no chance it could mess him up again.

But he felt like Bokuto should at least know.

If not then, if not now, then when?

“Hey, Koutarou.”

Bokuto hums, barely audible against the rain outside as thunder knocks on the glass panes and makes his heart thrum. Weakly, but the scare was enough to make him breathe again.

“Remember where we were going?” Akaashi asks, his throat stinging, feeling like it had been swollen and words were too big to fit through it. “On the day.”

He feels Bokuto look at him, but he doesn’t make eye contact. The uncertainty of how this would go frightened him just enough for him to keep his eyes trained on the floor.

“Yeah. We were going to...hm...dinner at that new place. With the bread.” Bokuto grins, and Akaashi breathes out one himself, his waterline flooded and the kitchen tiles were blurry and dark and in the violet wash of the nighttime.

Blue-black.

“Y-yeah. I, um…” He doesn’t know why he feels so nervous. “I wanted to give you this.”

Bokuto watches him as he slides the box out of his hoodie pocket, holding it up in between them, what little moonlight is flooding through the window presenting it like a spotlight. A gentle and mundane spotlight. But the box meant everything to Akaashi.

“Keiji...What is that?” Bokuto almost sounded scared.

“It is a ring.” He says, feeling numb already and he didn’t even give a speech. 

He remembered practicing what he was going to say in front of the mirror, texting Kuroo and Kenma frantically before leaving the house. He remembered urging Bokuto to dress really nicely because the restaurant was fancy and he was scared the waiters would sneer at them if they looked too comfortable. He remembers trying to act normal on the way there, more quiet than usual and brushing off Bokuto’s comments about it.

He remembers the broken glass. He remembers the blood. 

And in that time of flipping through his picture book, he finds himself crying, filling the silence with his sniffles and hating the way his chest felt. He was supposed to be happy.

They were supposed to be happy.

“I wanted to...I wanted to spend the rest of my life w-with you.” Akaashi tries really, really hard to breathe, his nose filled and his lungs heavy and his heart hadn’t beat since he got to his bedroom.

Bokuto clenches his teeth and shuts his eyes, trying to figure out how to help him. That would have been everything he wanted, too. Akaashi knew that. 

He had to have.

But he couldn’t say anything.

“Keiji…”

“I’m sorry.” Akaashi wipes his face with his hoodie sleeve, the box shaking with his trembling and he blows out a breath, thin like the traces of wind that slice by faces before a tornado. “Sorry. I thought I should t-tell you...I never got the chance to, you know? I’m...s-sorry.” 

He didn’t know exactly which thing he was apologizing for, either. 

Bokuto rests his head on Akaashi’s shoulder, and he tries his best to imagine a heavier weight, the weight he remembers from his dreams or from before the accident. 

He felt so disoriented all the time. He wanted to feel normal for once, to feel like he knew what he was doing for once. But his head was muddled and he doesn’t think he’d ever be the same again, not like how he used to. He’d try to get close to it, but he knew he’d always have the scars on his heart, maybe fissures in his head or scabs over his veins.

No number of websites meant for helping people through their grief, no amount of sorries and forgiving, no amount of trying so hard to be okay could have prepared him for the pit he found himself in lately. 

Akaashi didn’t like the idea, but he used to think that if they were to ever break up, it would hurt the worst. He did not think Bokuto would leave him like this, to be erased from the world. He would have preferred a simple breakup, because even then, people had easier times getting over it. They healed from the fact that their person was doing better, albeit without them, but at least they were living and doing _better._

He hoped Bokuto was doing better.

He’d lost him so easily _,_ like how pennies slip through coin purses or keys nuzzling themselves in the sofa cushions. Like ice melting through hot fingertips in the summer.

So easily.

He wouldn’t be the same. He was trying to accept that, too.

“Would you have been happy, had I done it?” Akaashi asks, and he uses his thumb to open it, not able to fully feel the velvet beneath his thumb. The ring was just as pretty as it had been behind the glass in the jeweler's. “Had I got the chance?”

Bokuto tries his best to stay neutral, knowing that if he told the truth, he would spoil whatever progress Akaashi has been making, even if it was minuscule compared to what he wanted for him. It was difficult, but Bokuto had to figure something out.

“I’m sorry, baby. I can’t answer that. You know I can’t—”

Akaashi pulls away from him slightly, looking over his hair and the cobalt aura that accompanied him in the dark, normally so discreet but it was nearly blinding in the pale radiance of the moon. 

“Please.” A tear spins down his cheek and kisses the floor as it drips off of his chin, his teeth clenched into a frown, still trying to hold it in. “Please, tell me, Koutarou.”

“Keiji-”

Akaashi reaches out for Bokuto’s left hand, expecting it to be just as cold as the air felt, expecting to hold it.

He goes through him, his touches missed and the feeling he desperately wanted to be real completely absent. His eyes blow wide as another tear paints crystals down his cheek, trying for his hand again.

Bokuto clenches his fist from where they were around his legs, eyes downturned and trying to silently tell him to give it up, knowing it would make him feel guilty to see Akaashi crying and trying to touch him, as if it would save his life to hold him again, just once.

And Bokuto knew it probably would, but he couldn’t do it.

“You can’t, Keiji.”

“Would you have said yes?” Akaashi knows he’s being selfish, so unbelievably greedy, but the curiosity sits heavy on his shoulders and he thinks it might have been the closure he needed. “Would you?”

Bokuto is silent, and Akaashi wants to scream at him, to push him, to hit him, to _touch_ him. He really liked to think Bokuto would have said yes.

The idea puts him at ease, if there even was anything left of him to keep calm.

He takes a breath that hurts his chest and makes him feel like his ribs would shatter. 

The rain laughs at him as he sinks back against the kitchen counter.

He shuts his eyes and closes the box with one hand, letting his head hit the counter behind him, harder than usual and the sting helps his thoughts come together, the sound it made the only thing he could hear in the kitchen apart from the rain.

“Why’d you have to leave?” 

Bokuto sighs at that, goes back to resting his chin on his knees, gaze set on his sock-covered feet and he tries to ignore how weak Akaashi sounded, how drained he knew he was. It was evident.

It made him upset, too. They were both dealing with grief, just in different stages. 

He only wanted Akaashi to be happy. It was hard to watch him drown every day, different parts of the day tugging at his legs as he tried to stay afloat. There was nothing he could do for him.

“I promise everything will be fine,” Bokuto says, trying to ignore the sniffles beside him. 

“I don’t think I could...ever st-stop waiting for you to come home.” Akaashi’s eyebrows furrow and he shakes his head at nothing in particular, his body wracked by another silent cry and the thunder engulfs them once more, hiding his face behind the hand that was not holding the box.

Bokuto lets a breath escape him. He brings up a hand to the top of his knee and traces circles above the fabric of his jeans, choosing his words carefully and watching the box shudder in Akaashi’s hand.

“Some things cannot be fixed, Keiji. Only carried. It’s up to you to figure out how to lighten the load.”

Bokuto for once, felt at a loss. He doesn’t know what to say to make it easier for him. And when words weren’t enough, Bokuto usually left him to watch over him from somewhere else. He didn’t really know what else to do in this instance, except for leaving. 

“I’ll be back, okay?” He gets up from beside him, and Akaashi barely felt it had he not been concentrating. He wanted to ask him to stay beside him, that he would be okay to talk in a few more minutes, that he was good enough to keep himself together for a little while longer.

He can’t fight for it. 

Sitting in their favorite spot to keep the rain out was futile, because it felt like the storm was constantly seething in his chest. Bokuto never did come back, either.

~✿~

Two months have passed, and Akaashi found it less daunting to get out of bed and do something.

He started off slow, spending less time in the shower and taking more time to eat breakfast. Bokuto came around, but more often than not, he was gone. Akaashi talked to the walls a little less, spending time with Kuroo and Kenma, or himself while he sat against the kitchen counters and the rain drizzled against the window behind him.

It took time, but Akaashi felt his heart beating more days than not.

Slowly, slowly, slowly. 

He thinks that it helped, visiting all the places that they left marks on, too. 

In that time, he left early one morning, biking to places he remembered on a whim with each one he visited. There was a part of him that thought Bokuto would be there, within each place, waiting for him to come and find him. 

Maybe that’s why he spent so much time going there almost every day. 

He started off with their high school, but he stopped sitting down under the tree with time. He pushed himself to walk to the curb at the far end of the street, near the ice cream place they’d stop and get popsicles after practicing all day. He pedaled to the bridge that had the bugs that glided over the pond beneath it, that housed fireflies when the night was particularly calm and coaxed them to waltz among the white lilies floating on the surface of the water. He took himself to the field once spring ended, hoping he’d finally see the flowers bloom, but they were still trapped in their buds by the time he reached them.

And after seeing them, closed off and uninviting, it took him a while to go back. The field had been the one place he looked forward to going to in hopes that their flowers would litter the grass and bring him back to the beginning.

Seeing them budding put another brick wall in front of the one he was almost done breaking down.

But visiting the places almost every week felt like he was keeping Bokuto alive. Visiting these places felt like he was still with his Bokuto under the stars at the cliff or swinging with him on the abandoned set that was the perfect size for the two of them, having stupid and serious conversations that wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else.

He never found his own Bokuto in the places he visited, either, but that was okay.

Seeing those buds, and thinking of how he wouldn’t have them in his hair anytime soon, how he wouldn’t have been tugged among the weeds to get to them, threw him off.

It was disorienting, still.

But today, despite wanting to stay in bed and maybe sleep until nighttime, Akaashi still felt like going back. There was something in his chest that pulled, _tugged_ , him in the direction of the field, told him that he should be among the grass that seemed to grow into the stratosphere. 

He needed to go.

Bokuto hadn’t been there when he left, and on his bike, as he focused on the grit of the asphalt beneath him, he hoped he’d be there instead, waiting for him in the kitchen and asking how he was doing. And he would tell him he was doing fine, even though he wasn’t, not really. But he would be closer to being okay today, and he knew Bokuto would like to hear that.

So he hoped he was waiting for him when he got back.

His lungs don’t burn as much as they did the first time he biked there, but his heels were aching with freedom and his head was full with the thought of seeing their field, hoping that the flowers would bloom.

He was close now. He was tired.

The sun was sinking.

He rides carefully into the field, holding onto the bars as the wheels carry him through the overgrown grass and closer to the trees that framed the patch like they truly were a work of art, a masterpiece for only them to see.

He would have believed it.

Akaashi spots the first bit of white buds to his left, and he quickly stops the bike and lets it fall to the ground as he runs towards the field. 

He was so _close._

And once he sees it, the delicate petals balancing the soft sheen of the sunset on the tips of it as its yellow center reaches to the violet clouds above him. He glances around, and among the daisies, there are blankets of white daisies peeking around behind the grass blades, glittering, smiling.

He needed to stay here.

Akaashi finds a spot in the middle that has the least amount of flowers in it, careful not to squish them under his weight, his body feeling heavy as the urge to go to sleep rides on his conscience, wanting to overshadow the desire to stay awake, to stay alive among the flowerbeds. He felt like picking them, maybe bringing them home to keep in a vase or planting them in a pot full of soil so they would bloom near a place that desperately needed it. 

The change of scenery would do him good.

Akaashi smiles gently as he gently picks a daisy between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the sun and watching as a glint breaks through the soft petals, like how asterisms complement gems.

For the first time in a while, Akaashi felt content. 

There was still an ache in his chest at the thought of Bokuto being here, seeing all of these flowers and shouting about how pretty they were while the moon urged him to quiet down. The yearning to be here with him still lingered, and the longing for his voice to soak into the petals pained him.

But he was getting closer to being okay.

Akaashi lets his forefinger trace over the velour of the daisy petals, tracing over memories and amnesty alongside it as the sun warmed his skin and transparent stars settled on his cheeks.

These flowers truly were beautiful. 

And he hoped, in another plane, wherever Bokuto had been living, that he got see just how beautiful the field was at the start of summer, daisies blooming for him.

~✿~

The sky was brighter than usual.

He last remembered that it had been setting, close to twilight, even. The orange violet that blanketed over them seemed to glow against the sun, and it made Akaashi squint to look in its direction.

“Keiji~.”

His voice sounded far away, as if he truly belonged with the wind that brushed over the field. Akaashi doesn’t look at him, yet, but he feels him sit beside him and focus on the sunset that had been showcased for them, unrelenting.

“You see the sunset, too?” Akaashi asks, staring at the golden daisies and dandelions near their feet.

“Yeah. No blue-black?” Bokuto looks at him with an eyebrow raised, thinking he looked beautiful, rendering in the rays of the sunset before them

“No blue-black.” Akaashi smiles, and it felt good to have Bokuto with him again, despite them not being in the comfort of their home.

And he thinks that it was a good sign to have him here, that he wasn’t tethered to his kitchen or his bedroom or his shower.

“Did you miss me?” He asks, and Akaashi nods. 

“Yes. I always do.” He tells him, and a wind blows through his chest. “But not as bad as the day before.”

Bokuto smiles, and Akaashi glances at him, the sun lighting him up in a soft corona, as if crepuscular sat in his chest and the halo around him was nothing new, as if it was something that belonged with Bokuto himself.

Akaashi didn’t think it was anything new.

“The flowers bloomed, I see,” Bokuto says, and he picks one of the white flowers out of the mess of weeds around them. “The daisies are pretty.”

“Yeah.”

Akaashi doesn’t say anything, too wrapped up in how real everything felt, how whole Bokuto looked. The blue aura that trailed him was replaced with the beautiful halcyon from the sun, as he crawled on his knees so that he was sitting in front of Akaashi, a few flowers in between his forefinger and thumb. 

He takes a deep breath through his nose.

His ribs hurt.

“I was so happy with you all the time. Especially here.” Bokuto says, tenderly placing a daisy in Akaashi’s hair, delicate, as if he belonged in a museum behind glass.

He feels real. Akaashi knew he was dreaming. If not sleeping, imagining.

He didn’t mind the vividness of it. He would cherish it for as long as Bokuto stayed.

“Me too,” Akaashi tells him, feeling the stem of a white daisy tickle his head as Bokuto threaded it within his black hair.

He reaches for a daisy beside Bokuto, picking a few of them from the area, before bringing them up to his own. He knew it would be futile, but it was still nice to think he could decorate Bokuto’s hair, too.

Maybe.

And when the stem slides into his messy, white hair, Akaashi stops.

“How come I could feel you?” He asks, eyes flicking between Bokuto’s, trying to find any kind of lie within the truth being set up here, to save him from the disappointment that would come later.

Bokuto smiles, one of those show-stopping ones that make his eyes squint up and crease, before he pulls a daisy from beside Akaashi.

“Dunno. I think we’re in the same plane right now.”

Akaashi rolls his eyes with a smile, pressing a white flower beside Bokuto’s ear while the other pressed a daisy at the top of his head.

“Doesn’t really matter,” Bokuto says. 

Bokuto sets one more flower in Akaashi’s hair, pulling back a bit from him as his golden eyes skim over his face. Akaashi could feel himself fall in love again as the sun ignites Bokuto’s skin like warmed honey, as if he’d been trapped in resin almost, the tip of his nose splashed with peaches and his cherry lips upturned as the wind lightly ruffles his hair, causing his flowers to quake.

“You are so beautiful, Koutarou.” Akaashi sighs, trying not to blink so much, trying to engrave him in his head as best as he could. “My daisy.”

“Come on, Keiji.” Bokuto looks away with an embarrassed smile and blushes, pressing his hands to his cheeks as if it would make it go away. “I’m supposed to be the mushy one.”

Akaashi grins, cautiously taking one of Bokuto’s hands away from his face with a distant fear that he would go through him, like the last few times he’s tried to.

His heart flutters when Bokuto’s hand sits in his. It soars when he laces their fingers together.

It falls when he kisses his knuckles.

“I can touch you. I can _touch you.”_ Akaashi whispers against his knuckles, warm and familiar, as tears warn him, pooling at his waterline.

It was like the sun finally rising after storms, crossing the finish line to marathons, or finishing a test you spend weeks studying for. And it was here when he thought the iron fortress was just a house. Not really much else, but it was just a _house._

His home was in front of him, sitting in a field of daisies while butterflies flitted behind him.

He was the soft creaking of the floorboards and the white paint that clung to the walls and held all the love they could’ve ever given to each other while they were together. 

He housed Akaashi’s heart without really being explicit about it, yet he was still definitively his.

He always would be.

“If only you’d bought the ring with you.” Bokuto beams, and Akaashi looks up at him, one toying with his own lips.

“I should’ve.” He looks at their fingers, fitting like the puzzle pieces Akaashi had been missing, and he swore they would have a red string tangled in between them in another life. “Would you have said yes?”

He asks this question with less desperation. He was not crying this time, and Bokuto was not getting upset. He was happier, watching him tread and swim, rather than drowning in water that was too rough for him.

“You know I would’ve. A thousand times.” Bokuto leans forward and presses his free hand to Akaashi’s cheek, hot with the sun. “I probably would have cried and embarrassed myself in front of all the scary waiters.” Akaashi simpers, sitting up a little straighter as Bokuto shifts himself to be a bit closer to him, their knees touching.

Touching, touching, touching.

Akaashi leans his face into Bokuto’s touch, bringing his own free hand up to hold it, benign, and pressing his lips to his palm.

“You’re all I wanted.” Akaashi’s eyebrows come together, taking the time to cherish the gold color of Bokuto’s soft eyes. They had the prettiest shape he’s ever seen. “Thank you. I’ll love you forever.”

Bokuto’s smile wavers, and he tilts his head while his eyebrows knit together. To him, it felt like Akaashi was the one who’d be leaving him.

“I will, too. Until forever is over.”

Akaashi sees Bokuto’s eyes flick back and forth between his own, seeing him lean in almost hesitantly. The barriers that they had spent so much time building up, the unseen boundaries and invisible obstacles that they had spent so long setting up to keep each other out to an extent, were fragile, so easy to knock down.

Akaashi meets him in the middle, kissing him like he would disappear forever if he hadn’t. The butterflies in his stomach flutter recklessly as Bokuto lets go of his hands and holds onto the back of his neck, lightly pushing into it, his fingertips like matchsticks and sparking fires beneath his skin, the same as how they used to. He lets himself go, lets the wind blow through him and sweep away the pieces of his heart that sunk to the pit of his stomach, taking him to better times, his favorite memories that centered around the last time he kissed Bokuto like this, with gold leaf lining his lips and diamonds studded in his skin.

Time had packed itself into the way Bokuto’s mouth moved against his own, slow and ardent, and Akaashi felt like he would melt into him had he kept this up.

For a while, he’s been wanting to kiss him like this, like the world would wait for them. In the past nine months, Akaashi knew that it never would.

But at least now, she was giving them a chance.

Akaashi kisses Bokuto again, and again, and again, feeling his heart beating, half alive but fully there and there is love spilling from between his lips and his lungs are burning again. Reluctant, he pulls back slightly when his chest felt too tight to keep going, ghosting his lips over Bokuto’s and breathing with him.

Bokuto rests his forehead on Akaashi’s and a daisy falls from his hair, floating over his cheek and falling into the grass. 

“How cheesy do you think we could get?” Bokuto smiles, eyes still shut, and his voice was the only thing occupying Akaashi’s headspace as the question didn’t really have an answer.

Akaashi pulls back before leaning into him again, making him fall backwards into the flower patch, a daisy falling onto Bokuto’s forehead and his giggles replacing the hush of wind sailing over the grass. Akaashi rests his head on Bokuto’s chest while the sun wavered, and there was a heartbeat this time, the same one he’d spent so much time pining for, wishing for a pulse behind the walls and above the roof or within the lining of the shower.

Just anywhere within his reach.

Akaashi holds onto Bokuto’s hoodie, scared of losing the memory of him while he had him. Bokuto has an arm around his shoulder, while his other hand took the daisy from his forehead and placed it back into Akaashi’s hair, wanting him to have as many of them as he could before he left.

And as Akaashi listened to Bokuto’s voice run over stories and scenarios that would never happen in a million moons, as things feel a little more normal and a little less blue-black, as this became another memory he would hide in his treasure chest for safekeeping, he heals.

Only a little.

~✿~

When Akaashi wakes up, he is alone.

There’s an empty feeling in his chest but it wasn’t as bad as it usually was, all things considered. He expected Bokuto to be off somewhere in search of more flowers to put in his hair. Maybe he dreamed up the bloom, too. That dream had felt so real, so alive. 

It disappointed him still, knowing that it was only in his head.

The moon glows above him, watching over him while he slept within the field, his bike where he left it and the flowers still billowing beside him.

The daisies.

Akaashi looks at them, blinking slowly as the realization comes to him. The daisies surround him, and they're so alive and vibrant and pretty that he thinks he might be dreaming still. 

Bokuto was not here, though. 

He couldn’t be here.

Akaashi sighs lightly, but he doesn’t think he’s ready to go home yet, not ready to get up and bike all the way back to his house. The iron fortress beckons him, but not as loud as it usually was.

He ignores it.

Something tickles the tip of his ear when the wind picks up, and he quickly swats it, fearful that it was a bee about to sting him or a bug about to go into his skull.

Instead, a daisy is flat against his fingers, and he takes it away from his skin, looking at it. A daisy falling from the sky...

This was ridiculous.

Akaashi looks up anyway, and another daisy falls down the nape of his neck. He brings a hand up to his hair, feeling the hard stems and soft petals of the flowers from the field in it against his sensitive fingertips and his heart falls.

He smooths a palm over them, placed neatly, as if they had been put in with all the time in the world to do so. As if they were put in with patience.

Akaashi shuts his eyes and lets his head hang, feeling the flood pooling at his feet, threatening to overfill and drown him again had he thought about it.

He didn’t let it. 

Not yet, not yet.

He focuses on the flowers in his hair and underneath his palms as he runs a hand along the grass, each one buzzing against his skin, jiving, alive.

He is okay.

_Grief was a strange thing._

It sometimes felt like a new road on the freeway, bumpy and unstable and it sometimes veered you in a different direction depending on how you drove on it. It was like the static of the television once turned to the wrong channel, or the first streams of smoke from the middle of a forest. It ran rampant and unforgiving, burning you up and burying you alive once it decided you’ve had enough.

It was the stubborn buds of daisies that kept you waiting, until finally, _finally_ , they thrive against the sun and blossom beneath fingertips that were getting tired of staying stagnant.

But Akaashi thinks it’s okay for people to handle it differently. As long as you’re handling it, it was okay.

These flowers felt good.

They gave him a sense of belonging. 

For months, he’s been lost, trying to find himself while searching for another, carrying the burden of a memory he couldn’t remember to forget. Some things can’t be forgotten or fixed.

The daisies smiled in encouragement as he thinks about his dreams, thinks about his memories, about his Bokuto. He liked to think they kept him alive, too. Every daisy housed him in their petals and stalks and stems. They bloomed with his laughter and wilted with his anger. They were vibrant with his smile and stood tall against the gradient of his voice.

They were beautiful, just like his Bokuto had been.

And as Akaashi picks a daisy out of his hair, holding it against the moon and watching it blend in with the shadows, he thinks that maybe, and only maybe, they would help him lighten the load one day.

Just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! pls drop kudos or a message to let me know how you felt about this (only if u wanna)! i hope u enjoyed~
> 
> let's be friends! dm me @kaashihq or, if you'd rather not, my cc is in my profile here :]


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